| October 18 , 2007 |
| Learn the facts about SCHIP. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| July 22, 2007 |
| When money is tight, it is especially prudent to find investments that yield high returns. Food Stamps offer a good opportunity. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| June 3, 2007 |
| You could easily live your whole life in Iowa without eating an Iowa-grown meal. This may seem surprising, because Iowa is a leading agricultural state. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 26, 2007 |
| Property tax reform will not be easy; someone will have to pay for it. TIF reform could, in fact, provide some of the funds. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 13, 2007 |
| Committing to health care for kids is in keeping with the nurturing spirit of mothers that we celebrate today. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| April 14, 2007 |
| Smaller, Iowa-based firms dutifully pay taxes on all their business income but find themselves competing against large multi-state corporations paying little Iowa tax. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| March 26, 2007 |
| An expanded earned income tax credit is the next piece of the puzzle to make work pay for low-wage Iowans. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| March 1, 2007 |
| Fair Share is part of a high-road approach. Silly arguments and policies aimed at preserving our status as a low-wage state will not help. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| January 14, 2007 |
| As speculation ensues over the outcome of negotiations at the federal level, Iowa needs to assert itself by joining the 28 other states that have a state minimum wage higher than $5.15 and indexing it to inflation. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| December 7, 2006 |
| A modest increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 can provide a meaningful pay raise to low-wage workers without harming the economy. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| November 26, 2006 |
| It should not be surprising that the head of a temp firm fears a better wage climate for American workers. That understood, let's take a look at Mike Cambridge's unsupportable arguments against a minimum-wage increase in the Nov. 19 Telegraph Herald. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| November 2, 2006 |
| If the question is, “What do we do about an impending labor shortage?” the short answer might be: “If you pay them, they will come.” That’s how markets deal with shortages. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| August 14, 2006 |
| Over 350,000 Iowans are paying the price of federal and state inaction that has allowed the minimum wage to fall to its lowest level, in terms of purchasing power, since 1949. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| August 5, 2006 |
| If we are to be serious about addressing the deficit, the public, the media and policymakers should turn their attention to its real causes, and be aware of the real economic context.
Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| June 8, 2006 |
| In Iowa, less than 1 percent of all estates are large enough to be subject to estate taxes. Farmers and small businesses are almost never affected by the estate tax. Repeal or near-repeal of the estate tax would provide tax-free and work-free income to heirs of a handful of wealthy estates while increasing taxes and the national debt for everybody else. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 22, 2006 |
| Tax cuts have become a single-minded policy in Washington. The defense offered for such egregiously unfair tax policies is that tax cuts for the rich create jobs. But the Bush tax cuts since 2001 have done virtually nothing for the U.S. economy. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| April 14, 2006 |
| Let's stop making tax policy on the grounds of who is making the loudest threats to leave the state if they don't get their taxes cut. It's time basic fairness returned as the guiding principle for tax reform.
Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| April 14, 2006 |
| We all dislike having to pay for things, whether it is cable television, gas for our car or our taxes. But as any economist will tell you, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| October 7, 2005 |
| Currently only 17 percent of Iowa's waters are designated to protect aquatic life, and only 3 percent for swimming uses; by far the lowest of any state in the Midwest. The Clean Water Act is based on the simple premise that all citizens of this country have the right to a clean, safe environment. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| September 29, 2005 |
| Medicaid cuts and Food Stamp cuts are just ways to pay for tax cuts we cannot afford. Tax cuts for the wealthy are a burden placed on all the rest of us and represent a "birth tax" on Americans yet to be born. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 22, 2005 |
| If you are typical Iowan, the estate tax will never affect you or your family. Ninety-nine percent of estates owe no estate tax becuase they are worth less than the current exemption of $1.5 million. The estate tax falls almost entirely on large accumulations of wealth, much of which was never taxed. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 10, 2005 |
| U.S. Motorsports is planning to break ground on a racetrack and museum this spring. As any business might like to do, U.S. Motorsports wants to keep the first $12.5 million in sales taxes it collects. Even after passage, legislators should carefully consider the consequences of this bill. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 9, 2005 |
| In a civilized society, and a wealthy one such as ours, you might think compassion for the least fortunate or less able would be unquestioned. Not so. Many services that help the less fortunate have been targeted during congressional budget negotiations, including Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| April 27, 2005 |
| Apparently, Iowa lawmakers like racing so much that they'll give Rusty Wallace and some of his friends in Iowa a special push — the kind of help no other business has received from state government: the ability to profit from sales tax. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| April 8, 2005 |
| In Iowa, when you look at all taxes (sales tax, income tax, property tax, gasoline and other excise taxes), you see the lowest-paid Iowans actually pay a larger percentage of their income in state and local taxes than do the highest-paid Iowans. Iowa's income tax is the only part of our tax system that is based on ability to pay. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| March 15, 2005 |
| In the Social Security Act of 1936, the American people acknowledged for the first time their collective responsibility to ensure the elderly could live out their lives in some measure of dignity. The privatization of social security would return us to times when our elders grew old without a safety net. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| February 3, 2005 |
| Since the courts suspended its operation last year, the Grow Iowa Values Fund has occupied center stage in Iowa’s ongoing economic development debate. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind the enthusiasm for this program simply do not add up. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| January 16, 2005 |
| The number of jobs at the end of 2004 are fewer than when President Bush first took office. In Iowa, we are still 19,000 jobs behind where we were when the last recession began in March 2001. So, while there has been slow growth in jobs, we should wait to celebrate at least until we are back to where we were before jobs started vanishing. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| November 20, 2003 |
| Iowa needs tax reform. That doesn't mean tax cuts for folks with high incomes. It means fair taxes that assure adequate revenues to fund our responsibilities. As the Iowa Catholic Conference recently noted noted, "Tax cuts, while popular, should result from a reduction in revenue needs, not as a result of providing favors for special interests." Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 28, 2003 |
| State legislators have called for massive income tax cuts to make Iowa more "competitive" with surrounding states to attract businesses and retain residents. In reality, Iowa is already competitive. Many tax proposals during and after the 2003 regular Legislative session ignore the fundamental responsibility of legislators to build tax policy on a foundation of principles. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| May 9, 2003 |
| What could tip the scales for someone choosing a job in Iowa or another state? Maybe it's a bike trail. Maybe it's an abundance of clear streams teeming with fish. After money issues, some human resource managers believe the key could be Iowa's environmental quality and outdoor recreational opportunities. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| April 15, 2003 |
| Whenever anyone suggests that you suddenly start doing things in a radically different fashion, you should ask: If this is such a great idea, why hasn't anyone else done it? Such is the case for the proposal to drastically restructure Iowa's property tax system. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| September 1, 2002 |
| While economists may argue the recession has ended, it is difficult to find evidence of that in job growth and unemployment figures. The labor market has stalled, unemployment is largely unchanged, hours worked continue to decline, and involuntary part-time work is actually on the increase. If we are in a recovery, it is a weak and largely jobless one. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| Summer 2002 |
| IPP Executive Director calls for renewable energy policy that recognizes the greater benefits of using Iowa's own natural resources to provide electricity, instead of exporting our dollars to coal and gas companies. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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| February 6, 2002 |
| IPP's research director warns against shifting the financial burdens of public services away from wealthy Iowans and toward those of lesser means. Read the Guest Opinion. |
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